As they say, all good things must come to an end.  Fortunately, all bad things come to an end as well... in this case, the Ikkitousen Great Guardians OVA series.  Unable to out-ecchi the previous Dragon Destiny series of OVAs, the animators went the silly and icky route last time... can they redeem themselves with one final flurry of fantastic fanservice?

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....um, not so much, apparently.  Earlier today, the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) filed an official protest with the FIA, saying in effect "we all really hate this idea, and you've got lugnuts for brains if you think we're going to stand for it."

The FIA, showing how much backbone they have, immediately caved in, saying "...if, for any reason, the Formula One teams do not now agree with the new system, its implementation will be deferred until 2010."

At which point, the FIA will try to screw the sport up again, and with any luck they won't have bribed Ferrari to accept the format by then... but for now, it's back to the points system.

Which is the right way to do it, of course.  You can discuss how much a win is worth, and how much second is worth, and so forth (FOTA suggested 12-9-6-5-4-3-2-1 earlier, instead of 10-8-6-etc etc, which I'm fine with), but it's clear that the points system works.  Why screw with it?

Oh, right... to let Ferrari win.

UPDATE: It turns out the FIA was violating their own rules by imposing their "solution"!  Article 199 of the International Sporting Regulations reads:
"Changes to sporting rules and to all regulations other than those referred to in b) above are published at least 20 days prior to the opening date for entry applications for the championship concerned, but never later than 30 November each year."

So nearly four months late.  And THIS is the organization in charge?

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It's been a long while since The Librarian and I have gathered at Pond Central for dinner and some anime.  Over the past few months, life has just gotten in the way.  Oh, we've gotten together every now and again for dinner, but the legendary Anime Night looked to be a thing of the past.

Until tonight.  Tonight saw the return of the tradition.  Dinner from Panda Express, a long bit of conversation and laffs, then four episodes of some series.  But what series?  It's been so long since the last Anime Night, we decided to start something new.

"They're all insane."

That was the comment uttered by The Librarian after the first episode of our new show.  And what show was it?

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I've been shamefully lax in praising a particular screenshot-based comic that I've been following.  Over at Moe Check!, DKellis has taken the third Nanoha series, "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS", and given it the DM of the Rings treatment.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, DMotR takes the Lord of the Rings trilogy and... well, looks at it as if it was a D&D campaign.  Each major character is being run by a person around a gaming table... and it hits every D&D nerve you could possibly have.

DKellis has done the same with StrikerS, creating Nanoha GamerS.  If you like the Nanohaverse, you owe it to yourself to read it now.  It's very, very funny, and yet strangely true to the series at the same time.

...except for the whole "Nanoha as psychotic killing machine" part.

No, wait... that IS true to the series, isn't it?

Anyway, I've taken the liberty of stealing one part of one entry as a teaser for anybody who might be thinking about reading:

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In a surprise move, the FIA decided to change the format for the Driver's Championship.  Instead of the driver with the most points winning the championship, now it'll be the driver with the most wins (in the event of a tie, points will be the tiebreaker).

Under this system, Felipe Massa would have won the 2008 championship over Lewis Hamilton, six wins to five.

Other than the champion, points will decide all the other positions.  In theory, this could mean that the champion could have fewer points than drivers behind him. 

Consider this possibility:
Driver A has eight wins but the rest of his races are DNFs, for 80 points.
Driver B has zero wins, but 18 third-place finishes... for 108 points.
Driver C has seven wins, and eleven seconds... for 158 points.

Under this new system, Driver A is the champion, even though Driver C had a much better season, and Driver B's season would be one for the history books as well. 

Funny, didn't we hear something like this plan from Ferrari at the end of 2008?

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He's not well painted.  His orange beard is, frankly, ugly on a duckie.  But y'know what?  I don't care.  It's a happy St Patrick's Day Duckie, and I like it!

He's also the only St Patrick's Day duckie I've ever seen, come to think of it.

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1 And what special power does he have in the game?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 17, 2009 04:47 PM (+rSRq)

2 Why, the "luck of the Irish," of course... he'd get to avoid one bird-dog bonk a game!

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 17, 2009 08:47 PM (tMdKd)

3 Hello there! I was just noticing you collect ducks also! Very nice! Hope you had a great St. Pat's Day. I am a rubber duck fanatic-you must see my quackiness at Duckshow.com! Also don't know if you know about Duckfest...the annual rubber duck collector meet up? I'm hosting it in NYC this year-you should come if it's not too far for you

Posted by: Digicolleen at March 20, 2009 05:38 PM (G2gtL)

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So The Brickmuppet and I are chatting, and he tells me that his pal BOB (who is never mentioned on his website) is going to be carrying a "collectible game" that uses rubber duckies as game pieces. 

Oh.  Oh my.  Yes, please.

Duck Duck Go! does, in fact, use rubber duckies as pieces, but they move around a hexagon board as guided by random movement cards, all the while being chased by a "bird dog" that can cause all sorts of havoc to your plans.

The rules (pdf) are simple enough to be understood in just a couple of minutes, but can become complex enough to require strategic thinking, which I really didn't expect.  All in all, methinks I see a new addition to the Flock's collection sometime in the future.  You can get it from APE Games, or from your favorite game retailer, of course.

There is one rule that I think they missed, though... they advertise "100 different duckies" are available as playing pieces (I've already got 34 of them, by the way), but none of them have 'special powers'.  The advanced game introduces action tokens, yes, but that's not quite the same.  For example, a Halloween duckie could scare the bird dog once a game, which would keep it from bonking you.  A Christmas duckie could give a gift of one hex of movement to any duckie (or the bird dog), which could make the target miss a bouy (or the drain!).  The possibilities are endless... which could make this game even more fun! 

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"We can't match their pace.  And I think nobody can." - Felipe Massa

"That they should be so quick just isn't normal." - HWMNBN

"...it is faster over the race distance than the Ferrari!" - James Allen, F1 broadcaster

What are these rather knowledgeable people talking about?  Why, none other than Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello in the Brawn Racing car.  Over the past few days of testing at the track at Barcelona, Brawn Racing not only had the quickest lap times but also turned more laps per car per day, showing a substantial level of reliablity to boot.

Just to make it even more impressive, the laps turned were pretty consistent throughout the runs, meaning that the BGP001 is gentle on the tires.  All of this combines to make the new team's performance somewhat legit.

In one way, this shouldn't be surprising.  One of the reasons that Honda's racer was so horrendous last season was that the team gave up on it early (some say as early as 2007) to concentrate on the 2009 new-spec car.  That would give them a head-start on everybody else, even though they're also behind in practice time with it.  That would also explain why their nose looks so different from everybody else's... perhaps they found something the others haven't.

I think it's a little early to predict a win in Australia like some have done, but it'd certainly be quite the story, wouldn't it?

In other testing news, McLaren has come right out and said that their car is currently too slow to compete for wins.  Speculation is that the chassis is having a problem with rear-end aero (much smaller rear wing), meaning that the drive wheels don't stick to the ground, and that means slow acceleration (lots of wheelspin is bad).  Of course, it's a long season... if McLaren is bad and Brawn is good at Australia, there's a pretty decent chance that those positions will reverse by the end of the year.  McLaren has a lot of money and engineering talent that it can throw around to be bad for very long.

Still, this is already shaping up to be a potential doozy of a F1 season... two weeks to go!

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It's so wrong, but so, so right.  I want a jar.

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As most of my regular readers are aware, I've long been fascinated by the War in the Pacific.  For thirty years (at least), I've been a voracious reader of anything I could get my wings on related to that conflict.  While I've been interested in anything that happened in those years, over time I've also narrowed my focus down onto the Battle of Midway.

As I read the incredible book Shattered Sword, I became aware of something called The Battle of Midway Roundtable (BOMRT).  Calling itself "an international forum focusing on the 'Incredible Victory' at Midway, the turning point of the Second World War in the Pacific," it's something of a clearinghouse for information on Midway.

The most important part of BOMRT, however, is without a doubt the weekly newsletter.  Members ask questions, which are then answered by other members... and the breadth and depth of the knowledge available is immense. 

Currently on the member list are 45 veterans who were actually present at the Battle of Midway, ranging from a Marine on the atoll, to PBY pilots, to Dauntless pilots and gunners, to crewmen from all three US carriers, to the lone TBF Avenger pilot and crewman to survive that plane's baptism of fire (Bert Earnest and Harry Ferrier, flying from Midway as part of the detachment from Hornet's VT-8, both of whom are covered extensively in the book A Dawn Like Thunder).

One member of the BOMRT has gained the nickname of "Santa Claus".  Annually, Ted Kraver goes to a major used book sale and picks up a bunch of military history books.  He then gives them away to other members of the BOMRT as a 'thank you' for the past year's worth of insight and experiences. 

This year, I was one of the lucky recepient of one of Santa's gifts:

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As we're all aware, F1 has some new aerodynamic rules that have, for the most part, made the cars look pretty much alike.  While doing the "F1 Pr0n" series of posts, though, I've noticed that there's one place that the teams have been showing a surprising amount of individuality.

That's the nose, and particularly how the front wing is mounted to the pointy end of the car.  There seem to be three main schools of thought on how the wing should be attached under the new rules, and we'll take a close look at them in a second. 

First, however, let's take a look at how the nose of a F1 car has been designed over the past three seasons:

 The 2006 Ferrari nose came with an extra element slung beneath the wing, but had a simple short mounting.

The 2007 SuperAguri nose had a fairly complex, medium-length mounting system, and of course a raised bridge-style wing.

The 2008 BMW nose had a short length mounting, and a very convoluted wing.

Now onto the 2009 noses!

more...

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Way to go!!!

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So I'm grocery shopping, walking down the bread aisle (rye bread: crack for ducks) and an attractive young woman is walking the other way, towards me.

Much to my surprise, she stops, looks at me, and says "I know you!"

This is good.

Then she says, "You're the weird guy with all the ducks!"

This... this is why people drink heavily.

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1

I'm told that young women in Japan dread the day that strangers start calling them -san instead of -chan. It means they're getting old.

Equally, one of the saddest moments in an American male's life is when cute girls start calling him "sir".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 07, 2009 05:47 PM (+rSRq)

2 Hey look on the bright side...She really DOES know who you are!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 07, 2009 07:47 PM (V5zw/)

3 As I said, "six of one, half-dozen of the other."

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 07, 2009 09:42 PM (tMdKd)

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Well, actually, not "Honda" but an entity called "Brawn Racing".  Readers of The Pond may remember that Honda withdrew from the F1 grid for financial reasons, and vowed to spend the month of December looking for a buyer.  When that deadline passed, it seemed a lost cause.

Recently, however, a team of Honda F1 management led by team principal Ross Brawn seems to have purchased the racing team.  An official announcement will be coming on Monday, along with the first test of their 2009-spec car at Barcelona. 

A non-official announcement from Nick Fry, former team supervisor and also part of the purchasing group, indicated that the former Honda Racing team will be on the grid for the GP of Australia, and that the drivers will be Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.

Which makes sense.  Both are pretty good drivers, though that hasn't shown in the results, and more importantly, both are experienced.  Considering the extreme lack of practice and setup time for the new-spec car, having two drivers who can give solid feedback to the engineers will be a must.

It's a stretch to imagine them being anything other than backmarkers for the season, though with the new rules, who knows?

Still, it means a grid of 20 cars, and even those who don't cheer for Honda will have to be happy to see them show up.  A full grid is always better than a short one.

More details to come!

UPDATE 3/6/09: It's official!  Brawn Racing will be on the grid come Melbourne.

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1 DINOSAUR EMPIRE!!1!!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:48 PM (DcSb+)

2 IT'S A COOK BOOK!!!!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:52 PM (DcSb+)

3

"There IS no third planet!"

"There WAS...but not anymore....."

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:55 PM (DcSb+)

4 I don't think my friends and I could make it through the day without quotes from The Princess Bride. Other than that, my movie canon would have to include Aliens, A Fish Called Wanda, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

And Python. Lots of Python.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at March 03, 2009 12:03 AM (2XtN5)

5 So, I push the post button, and immediately realize this isn't about the works that make up a well-rounded geek -- it's about the the stuff geeks bring up in conversation over and over. The geek memes, if you will.

So, please throw away more than half my post.

Gah.

That said, yeah, I think most geeks should have some contact with all the things I mentioned.

Posted by: refugee at March 03, 2009 02:47 AM (IsSOG)

6 Well, we can all do "obscure reference-fu" until we go blue in the face. I'm cracking up often enough on my own with no hope of explaining why I just found something so funny, and even the normal people I work with are fairly geeky ("I'm not a geek!" "Diane, you own a life-size standee of Jean-Luc Picard." "Doesn't everyone?")

The idea of the canon, though, is that there should be some body of geekdom that the geek is expected to have encountered - not just "that's on my get-around-to-it list", but the things which you're expected to be familiar with, the things where if you say "I never read that" or "I've never seen that", other geeks look at you like you're some kind of mundane.

Star Wars is part of the geek canon. So is Star Trek - not necessarily any individual bits of it, but you have to have seen some Trek somewhere.

Number one is indeed Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Hitchhiker's Guide is up there too, but a bit lower. Princess Bride, sure.

Books are harder - you really quickly set a fairly high intellectual bar for geekdom if you throw too many of them in.

Damn. This needs to be a whole series of posts, not just a few comments. Guess I know what I'm posting about this week, in between finishing off Lucky Star and Persona 3...

Posted by: Avatar at March 03, 2009 04:00 AM (7TgBH)

7 Ok, so I'll admit, I worked Renaissance Faires for about a decade, so the Python/Princess Bride references are everyday usage for me (And then, they had to eat the minstrels. And there was much rejoicing!). I had a friend who was actually an Anglican minister. He built a replica "holy hand grenade" cause he thought that bit was the funniest he'd ever heard. I'll add on another genre now... hasn't anyone seen Army of Darkness? "Gimme some sugar baby!"

Posted by: madmike at March 03, 2009 10:58 AM (mV2q+)

8

I find myself thinking that "The Terminator" should be on the list, simply because of "I'll be back." Besides which, it's Arnold. But I'm not so sure it really rises to the level of canon.

Meanwhile, about Holy Grail...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 03, 2009 01:21 PM (+rSRq)

9 Is Doctor Who necessary canon?  It certainly seemed like it was when I went to school, although I managed to avoid watching any until... drum roll... last fall.  Some Tom Baker-era episodes, and boy howdy did I hate them.

Even though I managed to avoid Doctor Who until early middle-age, I still absorbed way too damn much of the details of that British mess through osmosis & daily contact - I had a roommate for five years who wore a Tom Baker hat & muffler ensemble whenever it got cold out.

Posted by: Mitch H. at March 03, 2009 02:13 PM (jwKxK)

10  Terminator (2!) crossed my mind, but I don't know that that's specifically "geek" canon. Almost too normal, huh?

Who is necessary to the extent that you need to know that there's more than one of them, and you need to recognize a Tardis.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 03, 2009 02:57 PM (pWQz4)

11

Who is necessary to the extent that you need to know that there's more than one of them, and you need to recognize a Tardis.

Well golly...I'm not sure who that would be.  

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 03, 2009 03:09 PM (cpnJa)

12 The geek memes are works that a well rounded geek should know.  Or half of what a well-rounded geek should know, the half with a sense of humor.  I'd put Terry Pratchett somewhere on the list as well, as I've seen recent SF works by Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge that have substantial Pratchett in-jokes.  And, of course, Pratchett's works contain in-jokes that rely on knowledge of other items of cultural canon, from Dracula to RoboCop. 

An important reason canon is canon is because other works make references to it.  Part of the reason we study Homer and Shakespeare is because so much else references their works.  It's hard to read Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters without knowing Macbeth. 

For the more serious half of the Necessary Geek Knowledge, the books at any rate, I'd expect a geek to at least know who Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein are and something accurate about their major works.  The exact books can be left as an exercise for the reader, but it's important to note what parts of their works are referred to over and over.  For example, how much of how we view AIs in SF is colored directly or indirectly by the Three Laws of Robotics?

Posted by: Civilis at March 03, 2009 07:23 PM (tSDyr)

13

Mike, regarding Army of Darkness, I'd go more with "This... is my boomstick!" and "Honey, you got reaaaaal ugly."

 

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 03, 2009 07:30 PM (UdB9M)

14 Has Ph.Duck seen Holy Grail yet?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 04, 2009 01:08 AM (+rSRq)

15

Here's a curious suggestion: a true geek will have read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

"The Red Queen's race" alone is more than enough to justify that, but there are a lot of other reasons.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 04, 2009 01:15 AM (+rSRq)

16 Steven, I'm sure he hasn't.  I'm not sure he'd like it much... but I've been horribly wrong about his tastes in the past, too, so maybe I SHOULD inflict it upon him...

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 04, 2009 01:47 AM (tMdKd)

17 For those of us non-youngsters, LPs used to be a factor.  And Firesign Theater's works certainly warped many geeks and such with whom I've worked.  I would hate to have to recall how many times someone uttered a line from same only to end up with a ping-pong exchange with others, none of whom knew the others had partaken of Firesign until that point.

Posted by: Jim Horn at March 04, 2009 05:37 PM (s11YI)

18 Generally I agree that book references set the bar pretty high -- but we *can't* leave out the Three Laws of Robotics.

Also for the list:  Lost In Space -- at least for "Danger Wil Robinson!" and "Oh, the pain..."

And what geek doesn't recognize a quick utterance of "Bedebedebede" from Buck Rogers?

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 11:59 AM (1WX9E)

19 Oh, and even geeks who never saw the movie know that "There can be only One"

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 12:07 PM (1WX9E)

20 Certain elements of The Twilight Zone -- such as the goblin on the airplane wing, and the story "Eye of the Beholder" (and, yes, "It's a cook book!") -- are certainly sci-fi canon, if not "geek" canon.

I'll go away now. ;-)

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 12:35 PM (1WX9E)

21 How about Tom Lehrer?

How about Spivak's Calculus?

I've got more suggestions here.

Posted by: unsquander at March 11, 2009 08:30 PM (AEdWT)

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My stepfather, Ph.Duck, is a good guy.  Every now and again, however, Momzerduck and I trip over the strangest cultural blind-spots.

You see, Ph.Duck was born to a pair of missionaries (one Swedish, one American) in Nepal, and (mostly) raised in India.  He's lived about half of his years there, though not all at one time.  As a result, we'll discover unexpected gaps in his knowledge of American culture, mostly entertainment-based.  For example, up until about five years ago, he'd never seen Star Wars.  Momzerduck and I might go off on a riff from, say, a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, and he'll just look at us like we've gone completely insane.

He's a huge fan of the opera (and classical music in general), and they recently went to see Tristan und Isolde at the Chicago Lyric Opera.  A few days before, I said the only operas I've ever seen were by Warner Brothers.  He gave me a blank look... and I had to explain.  He had never seen some of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons!

So this past Friday, after dinner, we all sat down to watch...

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The Radio world, and America in general, has lost an icon.

Chicago-based radio legend Paul Harvey, often called "the most listened-to man in the history of radio", passed away today at the age of 90.  His "News & Comment" and "Rest Of The Story" programs helped millions of people get to work (or in my case, drive home from work) every day.

He had a unique presentation style, to say the least.  His staccato delivery style, mixed with huge pauses ("I'm Paul Harvey...{pause pause dead air pause pause}... Good Day!!!") when combined with a mellow baritone was instantly recognizable.  From a radio standpoint, dead air is the #1 no-no, but he realized that it could also be a great tool and made it work.

His news show were aimed to appeal to the common person.  They weren't intellectual, they weren't partisan (though he was considered "conservative", it wasn't unusual for him to state his displeasure with conservative issues and viewpoints), they were folksy and... warm.  And he was, without a doubt, the greatest pitchman in history.  He didn't take on a customer he didn't feel comfortable with, and advertisers lined up for years to get a spot on his show.  If he took on a product, they were made.

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I'm taking an anti-inflammatory that seems to help a bit.  I can actually bend my knee more than 15 degrees now.

Yes, that's exciting.  At least it is to me.

I've also acquired a cane, and it really helps.  Except when I'm on ice... then it doesn't help for squat. 

Still hurts like the dickens, though.

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